


17|29

by Hiraethra



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (medical) drug use, Age Difference, Anal, Angst, Character Death, Dirty Talk, Fingering, Infidelity, M/M, Masturbation, Oral, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Sickness, Slow Burn, Wet Dream, alternative universe, mild age kink, mild innocence kink
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:48:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hiraethra/pseuds/Hiraethra
Summary: Negan's life is shit. His wife is terminally ill, he struggles to keep two jobs and the medical bills just keep piling up. To make things worse, he can't stop thinking about one of his students.





	1. First thought after seeing you smile:

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story in particular is very special to me and I hope you'll love it the way I do. The endgame pairing is most definitely Rick/Negan, however, Lucille/Negan will also be a part of this story.
> 
> I did not list this as underage as the legal age of consent in Georgia is 16, and Rick is 17. I already wrote about 90% of this story, so I will update regularly though I cannot promise a set day as, y'know, life happens.
> 
> Please do not repost, recreate or translate! Thank you ❤

******17|29  
** Chapter 1  
**First thought after seeing you smile:**

Cancer, Negan quickly learned, was a fucking shit-show which was hellbent on taking over his entire life. It was something he woke up with and quite literally went to bed with – he was married to cancer as much as he was married to his beloved Lucille.

The diagnosis had come unexpected the way it usually did for people their age. Lucille was in her mid-twenties when she was told her own blood was cancerous and in the process of destroying her from the inside out.

Leukemia.

What a fucking joke.

So, soon after the diagnosis came the treatment plans. They skipped the corticosteroids as the cancer had already been too far advanced and went straight into stem cell transplants. First they tried an autologous transplant, which didn't work, then they used Negan's blood for an allogeneic transplantation, which also didn't work. The chemo in between destroyed Lucille mentally as well as physically and they were both aware that it was already too late though deep down Lucille and Negan had still been hopeful for a miracle. They should have known better.

Miracles didn't happen for people like Negan and by association, they didn't happen for Lucille either. And if disappointment and stress didn't come from the lack of medical miracles then it most definitely came from the bills they couldn't afford to pay. Their debts kept on climbing higher and higher because their goddamn health insurance didn't nearly cover enough. It was like getting fucked from both ends day after day.

Lucille ended up quitting her job because on some days she could barely stand on her own two feet and Negan took on a second job. Their shared chores around the house now came onto Negan, whom still had no clue how to wash his jeans without turning all his socks and t-shirts an impressive shade of blue.

Gradually things became worse and worse. There was always something to worry about. There was always something left undone in favor of doing something more important.

Perhaps the worst of it all was that everything had gone so goddamn fast. One moment Lucille's world was falling apart because she found out Negan had been sleeping with her best friend, the next she was in the hospital, being told she didn't have long to live anymore. With her marriage on the rocks and her life on the line she had done the strongest thing she could have done.

She forgave Negan and they both tried to make the best out of it. That's all they could do, really – just keep on swimming even if their legs were cramping up in the full knowledge that they would end up drowning. All of their efforts were wasted and never enough.

In a few months their lawn had become overgrown, the paint started chipping off their house in a year, and in a year and a half their pool was so dirty Negan was sure that taking a dive would mean instant death.

It was tempting. Sometimes.

* * *

Their marriage had been great at the beginning when the sex had been plentiful, the worries had been small and the laughter had bounced off their walls. There had been nothing more beautiful than Lucille whether she wore that little red dress Negan loved or was dressed in one of Negan's ratty old t-shirts and a pair of loose sweats.

Lucille had been Negan's first love. He had never thought about committing himself to a relationship until he met her, and then all he knew was that he had to have her as his own.

Things slowly changed.

Negan started going out more and she wanted to stay in more. She started talking about wanting to carry Negan's children and Negan started fucking random girls in dirty club bathrooms. She had always been the mature one – for her the marriage had been the beginning of the rest of her adult life and for Negan it had just been a way to mark her as his to the rest of the world. His intentions hadn't been as pure as hers.

He had just wanted to ensure no one would steal her away from him. She just wanted to love Negan until the end of her days.

It should have been him to get sick. Every day he thought that he was the one who deserved it more than Lucille did.

Now that he was working two jobs and hardly slept through the night, he barely had the chance to go out anymore. He was happy enough to see his bed at the end of the day – sexual intimacy went as far as his own right hand on the days he had the energy to touch himself.

In a way Negan thought that was only fair.

Sex shouldn't be on his mind with all that was going on.

But it still somehow was.

* * *

On Monday morning Negan was dead on his feet because he had spent the entire night up with Lucille, tending to her as she'd been in pain. He wasn't in a bad mood, though, because Monday mornings were his favorite mornings.

Monday mornings were when he had Rick Grimes in his class.

Rick Grimes was the school's golden boy, all curly hair and bright smiles. He was the captain of the football team, dating the head cheerleader and getting great grades in every class - the type of kid Negan would have loved to mess with had Negan been his age. Everything seemed to go as planned for Rick Grimes and from the looks of it, Negan would say that in 5 years he'd have a career, a wife and probably a kid. Smooth fucking sailing through life.

If Negan would have his way, however, he'd have Rick Grimes on his dick.

He told himself that it were those goddamn shorts during the day and that slim waist in his football uniform during after school football practise. Negan hadn't really been the type to fall for guys, he'd been chasing skirts for as long as he could remember, but there was something alluring about Rick's strong thighs and the way the light caught in Rick's eyes.

He wanted to fuck Rick in his marital bed, where Lucille curled up and cried either in pain or misery. He wanted to fuck Rick on the hood of his car, the same fucking car Negan despised more than anything. He wanted to fuck Rick in the locker room, in his office, on any flat surface. Fuck, even the bleachers - just yank down those little shorts and fuck him until he was dragging his nails down Negan's arms, begging because those pretty blues would be even prettier when tearful, and he'd be so wonderfully tight.

Negan just wanted Rick for the way he was. Young and healthy, innocent the way only teenagers could still be – the polar opposite of the way Lucille currently was.

These were the thoughts that always haunted him whenever he laid eyes on the teen, and they sometimes crept into his dreams at night too. Negan was a man caught in a desert and all he wanted was drink Rick down, gulp him up greedily until he had nothing left to give. He couldn't remember wanting anyone as bad as he wanted Rick. Even with Lucille it had been different and Negan blamed it on his situation. Two jobs and a dying wife had done shit for his mental state, he was always dead on his feet as though the cancer was contagious.

But Negan always came to life when he saw Rick. Rick and those fucking shorts. Rick and that damn t-shirt that was a little tight in the shoulders, but loose around the waist because Rick's body was still battling the losing war between being a boy and a man.

Fuck. Negan wanted him. Negan wanted him, so bad it took all of his willpower to stay still, to just look. Watch him move. Make the entire class run another lap just so he could watch Rick's face turn red and witness sweat drip down his brow, and hear him pant every time he passed Negan just so Negan had a closer mental image to what he would look like when he was fucked out and trembling.

"Hit the showers you damn skunks!" Negan called when the bell rang and the kids groaned in gratitude and started slinking off the field. Rick lingered the way he always did. Just those few seconds longer as though he enjoyed teasing Negan to hell and back with the shape of his ass and the line of his shoulders.

Negan dragged his eyes up Rick's body for the last time that day, because it had to last him until Thursday when he'd see Rick again. He started at Rick's scuffed sneakers and slowly took in the shape of Rick's calves, his strong thighs, Rick's hips and Rick's arms where muscle was slowly growing on his lean body. His eyes lingered on Rick's cherry lips and when he finally met Rick's gaze he realized Rick had been staring at him too.

Rick flushed, ducked his head down and quickly walked off the field.

Negan released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.


	2. "Come with every wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Lucille, give me strength."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would have liked to post this chapter earlier, but I somehow couldn't get satisfied with it. Word vomiting is the fun part of writing, but mopping all that vomit up and creating a somewhat cohesive thing out of it is the tricky part and that's typically where I just stop bothering. It's not fun to keep reading the same paragraphs over and over ;_;
> 
> This chapter is a glance into Negan's daily life as well as his perspective on things and how he deals with them.
> 
> Thank you for your feedback on the last chapter, it's good to know that people love this because I really did pour my heart and soul into this ❤ I hope everyone's having a great day!

**17|29  
** Chapter 2  
**“Come with every wound**

The week passed with indecent haste.

It was Spring and Georgia heat was already insufferable. The sun was hot during the day and it barely cooled down during the night - Negan had given up on wearing more than a thin pair of boxershorts to bed a few weeks ago and he still woke up sweaty and not rested at all. They used to have an airconditioner to make things more bearable but the piece of shit broke down last Summer and Negan hadn't been able to figure out how to fix it himself. Getting it fixed wasn't an option, they had better things to spend their money on, and so a small fan now stood on Lucille's nightstand instead so that at least Lucille was somewhat cool.

Negan couldn't help that he was so damn hot to start with.

Maybe if he'd ever have money to spend, he could buy himself a proper sense of humor.

As it was, it was on that particular Friday night that Negan found himself on his knees in the bathroom brushing back Lucille's hair from her face while she hurled her guts out. Today's chemo had been particularly tough on her and it wasn't the first time he's had to talk her out of quitting treatment altogether.

He knew it was selfish. Knew that if that was what she wanted, he should let her do it and support her like a good fucking husband would, but just the thought alone felt like defeat and Negan sure as hell wasn't a quitter. They had to keep going on. The alternative wasn't an option.

When Lucille was done she pulled away from the toilet seat, raised a weak hand to flush her vomit away. She curled up against his chest, a little ball of misery, skin and bones, and he absentmindedly thumbed the tears from her cheeks after pressing a kiss against her sweaty forehead. It was cruel, having to stand by and do nothing. Being  _incapable_ of doing anything. He had severely underestimated all of this.

“You auditioning for the Exorcist?” he joked because what the fuck was he supposed to say? Things would only get worse and the best he could do was try to make her crack a smile while her body was slowly failing her. She just sighed, clammy hands turning into loose fists in the back of Negan's shirt while she struggled to recollect herself. The bittersweet scent of bile started thickening the air between them and Negan buried his nose in her hair to inhale the comforting scent of her shampoo instead.

“C'mon, let's get up,” he nudged her, “It's starting to smell like a frat party in here.”

“Not yet. I don't think I...” she trailed off in shame and Negan frowned before he started getting up anyway, lifting her up in his arms. He hated how effortlessly he could do this because he knew it had nothing to do with the way he took care of his body. It had everything to do with her lack of appetite these days.

“Negan, you don't have to -”

“Yeah, I do,” Negan argued. “You just close those pretty eyes of yours and let me tuck you back into bed, I'll take care of everything.”

It was the least he could do.

* * *

 

At the start of the next week Negan was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he shamelessly sang along with [a song on the radio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQSn26zCXYQ) with his windows wide open for the world to hear him. His car rides were sacred to him nowadays, even if he currently drove a vagina on wheels, because those were the few moments he actually had to himself.

Small pleasures, okay. They were all he lived for at this point.

Negan actually wasn't in a bad mood today with all things considered. The sweltering heat still sucked more than a hooker on a Friday night, but when he pulled up into the school parking lot and parked his car, he was okay with feeling the sun on his skin. He always felt lighter when he got out of the house and was just by himself. Negan didn't beat himself up over this all too much as he knew he did enough to keep things going, but it did occur to him that he would like to have more of these moments to enjoy his own damn company.

He turned off his car, grabbed his shit and got out. He didn't feel too annoyed when he had to push his way through groups of teenagers to get in the school building and it didn't bother him when the hallways were equally crowded. The strong smell of too much body spray, sweat, hairspray and laundry detergent always made itself most apparent when there were this many teenagers gathered in one place. Unfortunately Negan wasn't spared of this.

Like usual, the hallways were buzzing with conversation. It was hard to imagine that it had already been 12 years since Negan had been attending his own high school classes. He still clearly remembered the poster of a nude Pamela Anderson, from back when she was still a total bombshell, he had stuck in his locker and got detention over when the principal found out.

Negan knew about 99,9% of the kids around him were destined for a mediocre life no matter how big their dreams were but a part of him would kill to be like them again. Have chances and hopes and expectations and the ignorant belief that adulthood was an instant ticket to Awesome town. As children we're all led to believe we're special snowflakes and as soon as adulthood hits us we melt away into one miserable puddle of water for someone with nice shiny boots to step in.

Negan didn't even do it on purpose, but somehow his eyes landed on the back of Rick's head. Rick was alone – that was odd, given he normally had a certain cheerleader attached to his hip. As Negan passed a few kids he noticed Rick actually seemed in a shit mood which was even more strange. Rick was normally always happy and smiling whenever Negan saw him. Now, he was angrily pulling things out of his locker, shoving them into his backpack.

Negan had half the mind to ask him what crawled up his ass and died before he decided it was none of his goddamn business. In fact, it would be best if he would stay away from Rick Grimes because Negan didn't trust his own hands or mouth at all. One of these days Negan would snap and say or do something highly inappropriate.

He was determined to make today no such day.

He regretfully walked past Rick, finally arrived in his office and gathered his things for the upcoming class.

* * *

Rick's bad mood turned into full blown aggression at the end of class. There had been a little more fire in the way he moved and looked and that should've been a dead give-away to how  _pissed_ Rick really was but even Negan was a little surprised to be in the position he currently was in; which was with an angry Rick Grimes in his arms, bucking and squirming to get free, and a bleeding Shane Walsh on the tiled locker room floor. Negan had to throw his own weight into keeping Rick in place - little shit was stronger than he looked and his body was like a furnace against Negan's. Negan would later on revisit the feeling of Rick's body against his own, with a firm grip around his cock.

Negan had found them after class in the locker room, Rick on top of Shane beating the shit out of the teen, and it had been one of the hottest things Negan had seen in a while. He might've stood by with his thumb up his ass just observing a few seconds for the hell of it while the entire class had gathered around to watch as well.

“That's enough!” Negan bellowed, wrenching Rick's arms behind Rick's back when Rick made to hit Shane again. Rick struggled against him while Shane was rubbing at his face and staring at the blood on his fingers. Shane's nose was busted to hell and Rick  _still_ wasn't relenting.

The hell did he do to deserve this?

"Let me go!"

“I said _enough!”_ Negan snapped in Rick's ear. “Shane, nurse's office _now._ ”

“But he -”

“Move it!” Shane scrambled to his feet and snatched a shirt off the bench, holding it to his face as he all but ran out of the locker room. Negan didn't let Rick go until Shane was gone and then he turned his attention to the other teenagers in the room. “What the hell are you all looking at? I thought I told you to hit the showers ten minutes ago, you're stinking up my locker room!”

They all quickly dispersed in a flurry of whispers. When Negan heard the water of the showers run and they were finally alone Negan looked at Rick to see the big shiner on his forehead, and his busted lip. His pupils were still blown with rage and he was shaking. He looked like a little beast Negan would love to tame.

“Come with me,” Negan said. Rick cast his eyes down to the floor and followed Negan to his office like a kicked puppy, slumping down into the chair opposed to Negan's desk while he rubbed at his raw knuckles. The skin hadn't broken yet but there was no doubt in Negan's mind that it would have had he come in a little later. He sat down in his own chair and stared at Rick a little while Rick was stubbornly not looking at him at all. He was running his tongue over his bleeding lip quietly.

Negan wanted to suck on it.

“You realize you probably broke the kid's nose?”

Rick shrugged. Tapped his fingers impatiently on his thigh. Glanced at the picture frame on Negan's desk, a photo of Lucille smiling back at Rick, and then he quickly looked at the clock above Negan's head as though the sight of her disturbed him. Negan leaned back, pulled off his baseball cap and rubbed a hand through his hair. What the fuck was he supposed to do with this kid now? Rick never caused any trouble before and up until now Negan had been convinced his candy ass was made of rainbows and fluffy animals – turned out there was a bad ass hiding in Rick Grimes after all. The little shit was a gift that just kept on giving.

“Was it worth it?” Negan inquired. Rick's eyes flicked back at him. He didn't say it but Negan already knew the answer to that question anyway.

_You're damn right it was._

“What are you, deaf? Speak when you're spoken to, Rick.”

“Yes sir.” Rick started picking at a loose thread on his shorts, drawing Negan's eyes to his thighs. “Am I in trouble?”

 _Not in the type of trouble you think you are,_ Negan almost wanted to say as he discovered a tanline when Rick's shorts had rode up on his thighs a little. It only made sense Rick's skin was showing proof of it being hotter than Satan's asscrack these days but that didn't stop Negan's attention from being drawn to that delicate sliver of pale skin. Rick was made for this heat – covering a body like that up was a damn sin.

“Depends on what you did it for,” Negan replied after a silence that stretched on a bit too long. If Rick had worried about getting kicked off the football team, then he shouldn't have. The Thursday afternoons Rick attended the senior football practise were as precious to Negan as the Monday mornings Rick had class with him.

“I caught him making out with my girlfriend.”

Negan whistled.

“Wow, that sucks,” Negan dryly said and Rick just glared at him. Negan let it slide though – couldn't say he was particularly sad to see their little bromance end because Shane and Rick were always fucking around on his field, but that didn't mean Rick deserved to get fucked over like that. It was good Rick stood up for himself. Showed he had a good pair of balls on him.

“In that case you got detention for a week or two, that's it,” Negan decided. Rick looked surprised but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth and argue Negan on that.

“Thank you,” Rick sighed while he visibly relaxed. Negan opened his drawer and pulled out a few tissues to hand them to Rick, and Rick pressed them against his mouth with a wince. Yeah, that was gonna swell up real ugly – for as much as ugly was possible on the kid.

Rick's eyes landed on the picture of Lucille again and he seemed almost pained when he started, “I heard about your wife.”

“Save it, kid. She's not dead yet," Negan snapped, the subject already breached too many times. Usually people dropped it as soon as Negan would make it clear he had no interest in talking about it, but some were a bit too thickheaded to notice Negan was about to sock them in the face. He sincerely hoped that Rick wouldn't be the latter.

"My mom had cancer too."

Negan paused and Rick licked at the blood beading up on his bottom lip again. Negan followed the movement carefully, a little flick of pink lapping up that red. He was caught between wanting to rub his thumb over it, paint Rick's lips even redder with it, and wanting to kiss him until the bleeding would stop.

Negan remembered how two Septembers ago Rick had come back to school after Summer break with red rimmed, haunted eyes and a distant attitude. Negan had known Rick had lost his mom that Summer, practically every teacher had been doting on him and Shane and Lori hadn't left his side for a minute. Negan had never treated Rick any different.

Maybe he should have. Fuck if Negan knew how to deal with those sensitive things.

"People used to tell me they were sorry all the time. Made me angry too," Rick continued while he fixed Negan with that devastating expression of his. It wasn't pity - it was understanding and in a way, Negan was impressed by the boy's strength. The fact that he had been able to witness all of it and still come out a decent person was astounding. Negan wasn't sure what Lucille's death would do for himself, but he couldn't imagine it doing him any good. Certainly none of that personal growth shit.

"I have to call your dad," Negan announced because he wasn't about to bond over his woes with a fucking _kid. “_ You're expelled for the rest of the day.”

"My dad works fulltime. He won't be able to pick me up."

"Other family members who can pick you up?"

“I came to school on my bike, I can go home myself.”

Negan pinched the space between his eyebrows, grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled a note for Rick to give to Deanna, the principal. The entire ordeal was already giving him a headache – this was why he yelled at kids. So they wouldn't pull this shit.

“ _Fine_. Shit. Just head to the principal's office, give her this, explain what happened and everything will be hunky dory. Get some ice or something for your face, you look like Kylie fucking Jenner.”

Rick blinked at him. Their fingers brushed when Rick took the note from him and Negan studied Rick's face a little longer, resenting that the kid looked this good when his face was 50 shades of fucked up. It just wasn't fair.

“Thank you, Coach,” Rick said. Negan grunted something under his breath and made a gesture with his hand. When Rick left his office, Negan picked up the picture frame to stare at Lucille, trying to stop thinking about that stupid tanline on Rick's thigh and utterly failing. The kid was going to haunt him until the end of his days without a doubt and all Negan wanted was to peel back every layer Rick had carefully constructed through his short life so Negan could figure out what made him tick.

“Lucille, give me strength.”

 


	3. And every woman you've ever loved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But it was the way Negan's name sounded coming from Rick's lips. It was the subtle tremble in Rick's thighs, and the sheer hunger in Rick's expression that made Negan step forward.

**17|29  
** Chapter 3  
**And every woman you've ever loved**

Negan's body was sweating in places he didn't know it _could_ sweat – no matter how many times he wiped at his brow with the back of his hand, there were still stray drops of it rolling down the sides of his face and the little fan whirring on his desk did nothing to bring him some sort of relief. The sweat had started soaking through the collar of his t-shirt at one point too and he couldn't tell you how many times he had whipped out his deodorant stick to ensure that while he did look like a hot mess, he didn't _smell_ like one too. It was safe to say that Negan couldn't wait to get home to take a cold shower and call it a day.

He could've already been on his way home right now, but out of the kindness of his damn heart he tended to stay behind a little longer these days. He suspected the Dixon brothers didn't have access to a proper shower at the end of their days with the way they always took forever and he was willing to cut them some slack.

No kid should have to deal with swamp ass. That alone was just plain child abuse.

So, Negan waited for a good extra 15 minutes because he was a great fucking guy. He patiently sat in his office, which was connected to the locker rooms, until he couldn't hear voices and lockers slamming shut anymore. Finally he shut off the lights, closed the blinds, and then he locked the door. Hoisted his messenger bag over his shoulder with every intention to finally leave until he heard running water after all.

“ _Hey Dixons!_ Get your redneck asses out of there!” he impatiently yelled because enough was _enough_ , but the shower didn't go off. He cursed under his breath before he walked over to the shower stalls.

“I'm locking you in here!” he threatened, but when the water still didn't stop running Negan assumed that one of the shits had simply not cared enough to turn it off. He kicked the shower stall door open, his mouth becoming dry all at once.

It wasn't a Dixon.

It was _Rick._

And he was touching himself.

Standing right under the showerhead with soap suds traveling down his body, he looked at Negan with pupils so dilated his eyes looked _black_. It was like he had been waiting there all along for Negan, like a wrapped present underneath the Christmas tree, waiting to be spotted and unraveled. Rick had a firm grip around his cock, his white teeth digging into the knuckles of his other hand to muffle his own sounds. He was all tanlines, freckles, subtle muscle and _filth._ All of Negan's blood rushed south and his grip on his bag grew lax.

It dropped to the floor with a soft _thump_ while his breath stuttered in his throat.

Rick didn't curl into himself to his credit – he just kept touching himself, thumbing the tip of his cockhead with another soft moan. He cupped his balls and rolled them between his fingers as his back slumped against the shower wall and water poured over him, his skin shining with it. He was putting up a show and was damn well enjoying it too.

Negan should berate him. Tell him to get the fuck out of there, ask him what the hell he thought he was doing, hell – belittle him for being such a dirty cunt.

“ _Negan.”_

But it was the way Negan's name sounded coming from Rick's lips. It was the subtle tremble in Rick's thighs, and the sheer _hunger_ in Rick's expression that made Negan step forward.

He wouldn't be able to resist even if he tried his damnedst best. He didn't even bother undressing himself because he wanted to get his mouth on Rick's more than he cared about his clothes getting ruined, and the cool water was almost a shock on his overheated body when he stepped under the spray of the showerhead. Rick's body made place for him and finally, _finally,_ he grabbed Rick by the back of the head and kissed him.

It was... It was something else alright.

Rick let go of his cock to grab Negan's shoulders to pull him impossibly closer while Negan did nothing short of plundering Rick's mouth. He kissed with every intention of leaving a feeling, a memory so strong, Rick's lips would be left forever wanting his. He stole the breath right out of Rick's lungs and by the time he was done with him Rick was clinging onto him the same way the thin cotton of Negan's soaked shirt was to his back.

Negan turned him around, wrapping his arms around Rick's chest from behind, not giving a single shit about how uncomfortable his clothes were starting to become. He rocked slowly against Rick's spine in a way that had Rick arching against him, little openmouthed gasps falling from his now kiss-swollen lips.

“You dirty little fucker,” Negan growled into his ear. “You do this every time you're here, huh? Touch that pretty dick of yours, hoping no one hears?”

“Yes – yes, Coach.”

Negan groaned, imagining that the first few times Rick had explored himself had been to the thought of Negan. His hand slipped in between them and he pressed against Rick's shoulders until Rick bent over for him, braced against the wall with his hands. He jolted when Negan's hand came down onto his bottom with a wet _smack_. The water was plastering his hair to his skull and his cock was aching behind his zipper, the strong desire to just fuck into Rick's body with everything he had overriding any sensible thought.

He rubbed his hand over the red mark he had left behind on Rick's ass, before Rick spread his legs further apart for him. He arched his spine, the twin dimples at the base of it glimmering like two diamonds in his sunkissed skin –

The screeching sound of his alarm woke him up.

Negan blindly reached for his nightstand, finding the damn clock and hurling it across the room where it shattered into pieces as it connected with the wall.

"That's the second time this month," Lucille slurred, stirred awake from the sound the collision had made. Negan cursed at the thing some more under his breath while he pressed his face back into his pillow, all too aware of the fact that he'd been rocking into the mattress in his sleep, grinding for some relief like a goddamn dog. His cock was hard and throbbing and he was in a shit mood already now that he was robbed of the orgasm he had apparently been so close to working himself into.

This wouldn't be the first time he's had wet dreams (no pun intended) about Rick Grimes like some goddamn preteen. The dreams came to him occasionally but when they did, they were so damn _real_ that Negan was sometimes surprised to wake up next to Lucille after all. Oh, in his mind he's had Rick in every position imaginable, on any surface Negan could think of, doing anything his dirty brain could come up with. This one though – this one was new.One day his own fantasies would kill him.

He didn't want to be awake. He wanted to be asleep, where his mouth would press against sunkissed skin, his fingers tangled in soft curls, his eyes locked on Rick's and his cock buried deep within the teen. Where all that mattered was his pleasure.

Regretfully he pushed himself up. A look at the calendar across the room told him today was Thursday, which meant he had senior football practise in the afternoon.

Small mercies.

He heaved out a long sigh and looked at the destroyed clock on the floor. From what he could see, he wouldn't be able to fix it this time.

"Would you look at that - I Hulk-smashed the shit out of it," he murmured in mild bemusement, peeling the sheets off of his body. Lucille made a soft noise and didn't even bother opening her eyes which was probably for the best. Negan's cock was stiff like a board and there had been times she would have given him a hand with it but those days were long gone. If it hadn't been the cancer to make sure of that then it was the fact that he broke her heart just a day before her diagnosis.

Not like he deserved any better. An asshole like Negan deserved to get his dick cut off entirely – a little sexual frustration was nothing he couldn't nor shouldn't handle.

"Just don't turn green on me. It's not your color."

Negan snorted, knowing that at least one part of his anatomy was feeling more _blue_ than green. He leaned over and kissed her temple, deciding to swallow down his comment of his balls being more blue than a depressed Papa Smurf.

"Need anything today?"

"Just you. Come home safe."

Lucille turned a little to kiss him on the cheek.

"I will," Negan promised. He was about to get up when he caught sight of the strands of hair on their pillows. His erection slowly withered as he noticed a small bald spot right at the base of Lucille's skull and without second thought he gathered as much hair as he could in a fist. When he was certain her eyes were still closed he walked out of the bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom.

He loosened his fist above the toilet and watched the hairs drift in the water as the pleasure from his dream seeped from his body and the usual feeling of being so _tired_ overcame him once again.

He flushed them away and started getting ready for the day.

* * *

 Shane was the first to walk the field when practise begun. He had given himself a buzzcut and the side of his face was still bruised, courtesy of Rick's fists raining down on it not too long ago. He was wearing a scowl - his nose was indeed broken like Negan had thought it would be if the bandage on it was any indication, but obviously the kid didn't expect any trouble with it during practise or else he would've spoken to Negan about it.

Maybe Negan should have broken Shane and Rick up a little bit sooner. The kid looked worse for wear.

When Negan gave him a curt nod, Shane looked meaner than hell when he didn't even bother saying or doing anything in return. He just shoved his mouthguard into his mouth and put his helmet on.

Then again, maybe Negan should have let Rick get a few more licks in.

The rest of the team soon followed; T-Dog, Daryl, Merle, Tyreese, Paul, Phillip, Morgan, Gareth, Aaron and Spencer, all ready to go. Negan did a quick headcount and paused when his eyes landed on Rick. It almost felt wrong, seeing Rick fully clothed when in his mind Rick had been naked so many times already. He didn't look like the Rick from his dream, he was lacking the confidence and the sheer _sex_ in his eyes, but the real Rick was paying just as much attention to him. The helmet didn't permit Negan to get a good look on the bruising on Rick's face, but his lip still looked pretty painful. Rick's lips tilted up a little in a smile and Negan looked away again to resume his headcount. He was already getting distracted.

"Since everybody decided to show up we can get started. We're having a few more water breaks in between than usual, because I'm not dealing with you weenies passing out on my field because of a heat stroke. You feel any dizziness, muscle cramps, head aches or anything of the sort, you come to me. Got it?”

When the kids still stood gathered around him, he clapped his hands.

“You know the drill, _move it_!"

He had the team warm up first - run a few laps, do a few stretches. His eyes kept being drawn to Rick and his long, slender limbs no matter how much he tried to keep his attention trained on all of them to make sure no one was pulling any shit. By now Negan already knew that Rick sweat fairly quickly (not that Negan made things easy on him) and the back as well as the front of Rick's uniform shirt was soon already soaked with it. Negan wondered what it would be like, to lick all those little drops off his skin, if it would make Rick squirm or sigh.

The thing Rick had going on with Shane appeared to have remained unsolved. The two firmly stayed away from each other and glared at one another from across the field and that was just fine by Negan. Fuck if he should care.

Next he had them sprint 10 meters and by the time he had them practise tackles Shane took his chance to get back at Rick. Shane had Rick on the ground in seconds and their fists were swinging at each other again, Rick's hips bucking to get Shane off him.

"Hey - _hey_! That's enough!" Negan yelled as he jogged over to them, grabbing Shane by the back of the shirt to pull him off.

"He started it!" Rick yelled almost childishly as he spat out his mouth guard and got back on his feet. Negan firmly planted himself between the two teens.

"You think I give a shit? You do this on my field again and you two can spend your Thursdays with the drama club instead where your bitching will be appreciated!"

Oh boy – Negan was lucky looks couldn't kill, because if they could then Shane Walsh would have been one pleased motherfucker right now.

"Did I make myself clear?" Negan demanded, steadily meeting Shane's stare. How he wished Shane would say anything to him right now just so Negan would be justified in giving him detention for the rest of the year. How the fuck was Rick friends with this asshole for so long? Negan would've socked him in the jaw a long time ago if he would've been able to get away with it.

"Crystal," Shane sneered at last after casting Rick a dirty look that had the teen bristling by Negan's side. Shane walked off and Negan glanced Rick over.

"Don't get your face busted in again," he then said when no one could hear. Rick glared at him.

"It's him you should worry about, not me."

"I don't give a shit about _him_."

It was out before he could catch himself. Rick opened and closed his mouth, looked at Negan as though the older man had slapped him. Negan's hand landed on his arm and Rick's teeth sunk into his battered bottom lip, his eyes flicking from the hand to Negan's face.

Negan liked to think in that exact moment that Rick wanted Negan to touch him. That the surprise in his eyes was also laced with something a little different. He had no clue if he was projecting – if he was just seeing what he wanted to see.

He removed his hand from Rick's arm and had to force himself to break eye contact because he almost couldn't _breathe_ without knowing what Rick's mouth felt like on his own. Every time he did this, talked to Rick, it became harder to not take things too far. It wasn't like Negan to deny himself of something he wanted and the act of doing so made him antsy, chagrined. It was like having to watch others eat while he himself had been starving for weeks. He was bound to take a bite at some point when someone wasn't looking.

"Go on then. Walk it off."

Rick lingered before he jogged back to the field without so much as a second glance to Negan. Negan just wanted to sink his teeth into the soft globes of Rick Grimes' ass – God, the things he would do to it. He wanted to eat Rick out until he would _writhe_ in the sheets, he wanted to smack his ass and his thighs until they turned just as red and raw as his lips. Negan bet he could spend hours just fingering Rick open, nice and slow and _slick_ , until Rick would be sobbing for his cock.

And what a goddamn sight that would be. He was willing to bet that Rick Grimes would beg for it in the right circumstances. Well-behaved pretty boy like him would need some coaxing of course, but he would break eventually if Negan would go about it right. Negan was halfway through working himself into a stiffling state of arousal when Merle Dixon appeared in his line of view and he supposed that that was just as good of a cold shower as he could get at the moment. It wouldn't do to work up an erection watching his underage team run around the field after all.

Even if he only had one of them in mind.

“We still on?” Merle asked. Negan found it hard to look at him when he could be looking at Rick instead, all of his senses focused on the boy, but with some reluctance he managed.

“Yeah, you can come to my office after practise. Don't bring your little brother this time. The little shit looks like he wants to stab me."

Merle grinned a proud little grin as though the thought of Daryl becoming a criminal like him pleased him immensely. Daryl glowered at Negan from across the field, clearly disapproving of their little exchange, and Negan just smiled brightly while he swore to himself that he would punch a hole through the next kid who dared to give him lip.

He should've become a professional ping pong player instead.

* * *

 Lucille was on the couch wrapped in two blankets when Negan got back home. He took off his baseball cap and kissed her on the forehead, kicking off his shoes and having half the decency to align them near the coffee table where they wouldn't be in the way.

“Hey,” he greeted, looking her over. She smiled at him.

“Hey.”

“Had an okay day?”

“I just woke up,” she admitted, looking displeased with the simple fact that she slept at least 18 hours a day, nowadays. Negan didn't mind – he was working a lot of hours and at least now he didn't have to worry about her being lonely while he was gone. “And you? How were the kids?”

He gave her an one-shouldered shrug as a reply because it wouldn't be appropriate to go into detail about the perfection that was Rick Grimes' ass and how Negan would actually _pay_ to see Rick beat the shit out of Shane again. He dug into his messenger bag and tossed the ziplock bag he had bought off Merle Dixon into her lap.

“Found some Mary Jane for you,” he announced. Lucille's brow cocked up and she lifted the bag, studying the weed through the plastic as though she expected it to grow teeth and bite her. It looked wrong to him and he wanted to toss that shit in the trash but the medical marijuana the doctor had prescribed for Lucille was something their insurance didn't cover and they couldn't afford it on top of everything else, so Merle Dixon had been the next best thing. It was supposed to help against the pain. Help her relax a little.

Negan glanced back at her and knew she was sharing his thoughts.

"Never thought I'd go out as a pothead."

"You're not. Don't give me that shit," Negan argued as he walked over to open the blinds and let some sunlight in before the day would be over again. "This is for medical purposes. Prescribed and all, it just came in a different package."

"You know that if it didn't help against the pain I wouldn't –"

“Yeah. I know,” Negan quickly said, not comfortable with the subject at all. He walked to the kitchen and started on boiling water for tea for her, his thoughts drifting back to this afternoon. In all fairness, he was just eyeing the kid. He was certain he wasn't the only teacher out there who occasionally rubbed one out to the thought of a student. It was innocent for as long as Negan kept his damn dick in his pants.

He grabbed himself a glass of lemonade from the fridge and stiffled a yawn into the crook of his elbow, pausing when Lucille came up from behind and wrapped her arms around him. He looked at the bruises on her skin and brushed his fingers against them, hating cancer and the way it left her frail. How it coiled deep into her body, which had once been strong and beautiful, and slowly destroyed her cell by miserable cell. He wasn't sure what he had expected or what he was still waiting for. A miracle cure was out of the question and those blood transfusions as well as the chemo weren't doing shit for her. So then what? What were their other options? If Negan's mind wasn't with Rick then it was with Lucille, and when it was with Lucille he was reminded about how he couldn't do shit about anything. He was always reminded of the fact that he was entirely out of his depth. There were no answers to any of this because cancer wasn't a question.

Cancer was a ruthless fiend, taking hostage of whomever it crawled inside of.

“Want me to bake you some hash brownies? Following ancient family recipe, of course,” he said, trying to keep the mood light even if most days this house felt stiffling. It wasn't Lucille's fault, he knew that it wasn't his own either, but every time he came home he was reminded of how shit everything truly was. How they had lost the war without even arriving to fight the battle. At least when he laid his eyes on Rick, on any good pair of legs, his mind could wander to the more simplistic, pleasurable things, fantasize about a life where his worries were fewer and smaller.

Some days he expected to come home and find her body somewhere. He had imagined all the possibilities – she could drown in the bath tub while he was out grocery shopping, or she could choke on the couch while he was at work. She could trip, hit her head, and she'd be gone for good and leave him with nothing. Sometimes when he couldn't sleep he would imagine what life would be like without this constant heavy raincloud hanging over his head. Without having to carry this load. He could hardly remember what life was like when he was young like Rick.

Rick still had the world ahead of him. It would take Negan years to get out of debt, let alone overcome the emotional damage the loss would have on him.

Lucille pressed her body against the line of his back. When she used to do this, before everything had gone to shit, he would feel her breasts press against him. She had lost so much weight now that she didn't even have to wear a bra anymore. All those curves, that softness Negan had fallen in love – lust – with, all gone. She was just skin and bones now. Her body was a home undergoing demolition, no longer sturdy enough for renovation now that her foundations were crumbling like pastries. She carried the ghosts of all the children she would never birth and the broken promises of a long future in her weary eyes.

It was killing Negan.

“You know it's only gonna get worse, right?” she mumbled into his shoulder. He glanced at the white strip of skin on her ring finger. She wore her wedding ring on a chain around her neck nowadays as it didn't fit her finger anymore. “I'm stage 4. We both know there's no stage 5.”

“Jesus, Lucille,” Negan lamented. A very tired feeling swept over him the way it always did at moments like this when they talked about the big elephant in the room. The kettle started whistling on the stove and Negan reached for it, pouring the boiling water into a mug and reaching for the tea bags on the counter.

Lucille put herself between the kitchen counter and Negan so that Negan was forced to look at her.

“Through sickness and health, right?” he asked but he noticed it was affecting him even if he tried to fight it. She wasn't buying it either. She was strong-willed – it's what Negan had married her for. She never bent, never broke, she was the strong one of the two of them no matter what the world would think otherwise. She was strong enough to forgive Negan for all the shit he put her through, and she was strong enough to be able to deal with having leukemia.

But Negan wasn't.

“You don't have to watch me die. I wouldn't blame you, if you would pack up and go.”

The worst part about it was that the offer was tempting. He just knew he couldn't live with himself. As little as his moral compass was, this would haunt him until he too would die. The mental image of himself in seedy motel rooms getting freaky with any warm body willing to stumble into his filthy bed, while she herself would wait her own death in a hospital room was enough to make him physically sick.

“Do you treat all your pot dealers like this?” he dryly said. Lucille smiled but it was a watery thing and there were tears swimming in her eyes. He kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, pausing when he pulled back and had an entire strand entwined in his fingers. He couldn't hide this time – she saw it.

She touched the back of her head with shaking fingers.

“It's nothing,” Negan insisted, even if the horror of the sight of that single strand of hair struck him too. Until now her hair hadn't started falling out. She's had other symptoms – the chemo left her weak and sick, more sick than usual, but that had been it. This right there was physical proof of what was happening to her. “It'll grow back.”

Lucille's mouth twitched but she held the words in. Negan knew what she wanted to say anyway.

_I don't know if I'll be around long enough for that._

He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth as though to lock those vile words in before they could come out and hurt them both, felt the tremble in her lips before gathering their drinks.

It was up to him to be strong for her, and that's what he would do. He would keep his damned dick in his pants. Rick Grimes or not, he would let nothing rob him of time with her.

He could do this. He _would_ do this.

He told himself he should.

“C'mon. Let's get you high.”


	4. Every lie you've ever told

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It made you feel real good, didn't it? Doing something bad like that, you liked it.”

**17|29  
** Chapter 4 **  
Every lie you've ever told**

The lack of motivation to get out of bed that morning was astounding even to Negan's standards. He didn't even need to take a look at the calendar on the wall to know it was Saturday – one of his two least favorite days of the week.

There had been a time when he had lived for the weekends but with those days long gone all that remained was the mild irritation which rose within him every time he heard that damn alarm clock go off. It wasn't so much the waking up part that Negan had issues with because he was cool with getting up to face another day and get shit done. Negan  _liked_  being productive. What bothered him was the reason  _why_  he had to get up early in his weekends nowadays.

Being a teacher had been Negan's own choice, it's what he had gone to school for so he didn't mind his weekdays all that much. It wasn't a job that changed lives nor did it give him a huge sense of completion at the end of the day but Negan enjoyed the power it gave him and the fact that he could daily be busy with things he liked, which were sports. At least he was contributing to _something_ when he was working at school the other five days of the week.

That being said, of course he hadn't expected to have to take on a job on the side and sacrifice his weekends in the process. Negan could hardly believe that anyone truly ever aspired to become a used car-salesman, even if it was just parttime, but if some people did think selling cars for a living was their calling then Negan severely questioned their mental state because he's just about had it with dealing with idiots on a weekly base.

Working at a place like that was just mindless work which Negan mostly relied on his good looks and slick tongue for and he knew it. Not that Negan didn't like using his appearance for his own benefit, but he was better than this. It was a little degrading to work in the sweltering heat for both a job and a pay he didn't particularly care for and Negan would've shoved his middle finger right up his boss's ass a long time ago if it had been up to him. Unfortunately it wasn't, and so Negan didn't.

Fingering his boss wasn't at the top of his bucket list anyway.

The only good thing there could be said about this morning was that Negan woke up fully rested. Merle Dixon was a blessing in redneck disguise when it came to selling pot because his stuff was of good quality and it never failed to make Lucille sleep like a baby - and with her dead asleep and painless, there was no reason for Negan to sleep with one eye open either. If Negan could afford it he'd buy the stuff in bulk for sure.

When Lucille finally nudged her big toe into his thigh to remind him he needed to get his ass out of bed, Negan grumbled something incoherent into his pillow before he pulled the sheets off his body, stifled a yawn in the crook of his elbow and got out of bed. Then he started his daily morning routine which consisted of him brushing his teeth, taking a shower, getting dressed in his uniform shirt and a pair of ironed slacks and shoving a sandwich into his mouth on his way out after kissing Lucille goodbye. In his car he listened to an obnoxious guy (with a voice so high pitched Negan had to wonder if the poor asshole got kicked in the nuts ten minutes prior to recording the song) singing about how a bad girl should  _swalla_ and Negan severely questioned current pop culture.

As soon as he arrived at work the scowl on his face slid away to make place for a big, insincere grin as that was part of his uniform too. Negan checked his reflection in the rearview mirror and attempted to smooth out a little strand of hair that seemed hellbent on being a little dick today before he got out of the car and started his day.

* * *

The day, unsurprisingly, completely sucked so far.

Negan took pride in his ability to just go with the flow as soon as an old lady started hitting on him no more than ten minutes after the doors opened for business. A rude redneck came to bother him about a truck after Negan finally sold the lady a piece of shit car not entirely unlike his own and the asshole, of course, took the truck for a test drive and returned it covered in mud and an unwillingness to make the damn purchase. Negan then had to deal with some kids who were looking to buy their first car and had been expecting to drive away with a Camaro but ended up incapable of affording more than a beat up Fiat Panda - Negan would be lying if he hadn't enjoyed the disappointment on their faces. Kids nowadays thought they could get anything they wanted in life with the motivational bullshit they were force-fed since the moment they popped out of their moms.

All in all it was safe to say that around lunchtime Negan was starving and aching to bury his fist in the face of the next senseless douchebag who would bother him with stupid questions and demands. Normally he would have his lunch in the little roach-infested breakroom (it was that or eating at the nearby park and Negan  _really_ didn't feel like getting sunburnt today) but seeing as he had forgotten to pack a lunch this morning, he clocked out and walked to the nearby coffee shop down the street. Negan half-hoped they had a decent selection of sugary and generally unhealthy goods instead of those dumb gluten-free things hipsters were ranting and raving about these days because fuck it. Look at what eating healthy has done for his life so far - he might as well get fat.

When he entered the little building with peach bricks and a black sign outside that said  _I think, therefore I drank coffee_ a bell  _dinged_ above his head and no one was there to give Negan the usual curious glance over. If Negan hadn't seen the  _open_ sign on the door in fact he might've been lead to believe the store was closed - there was no one sitting at the wooden tables, no one standing in line at the counter. Everyone was outside enjoying the weather and their weekend and the poor asshole working here was probably chilling in the freezer like any reasonable person would do in this heat. Negan's own uniform shirt was already sticking to his spine in an entirely unpleasant way just from his five minute walk in the blazing heat just now and he could definitely see the benefits of sitting in a tub filled with ice cubes. Sure, his balls would crawl back into his body and his dick would shrink to a microscopic size but it would be  _so_ worth it.

As he walked further into the store, Negan was pleased to see that nothing had changed since the last time he had been here, which had been at the grande opening. The coffee shop still had an industrial, cozy feel to it and Negan could see how it had survived its first year and why he always saw people with the Terminus logo on their coffee cups - there was no doubt Negan too would come here more often if money wasn't this tight. Even if the prices were more than decent Negan just simply couldn't afford eating lunch out on a daily base anymore.

Negan pulled his wallet out of his back pocket while his eyes scanned the menu, thanking the holy heavens Terminus didn't go vegan or gluten-free. There was a glass display full of things right next to the counter just aching to give Negan diabetes and like a little kid, he was instantly drawn to it. A few rows of handmade cupcakes, muffins and cookies in all kinds of colors and sizes stared back at him and his stomach gurgled impatiently while Negan pursed his lips in thought. He should be a responsible adult and at least have a  _sandwich_  instead of this junk but...

He met a pair of surprised blue eyes through the glass and Negan blinked, straightening up to his regular height to see Rick standing behind the counter [in a barista uniform](https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/87/d5/b3/87d5b37ff7a113ffc027e398cab7dd47.jpg). Negan almost thought he may actually be hallucinating due to a heat stroke until Rick said a sheepish "Hi coach".

And fuck Negan up the ass with a baseball bat if Rick didn't actually look a little  _happy_ to see him.

Negan felt the first genuine smile of the day tug at his lips while he leaned on his elbow on the counter, getting a little more into Rick's space without even being fully aware of it. Rick was in a typical plaid apron with the logo of Terminus on his chest, as well as a little name tag which read  _Rick_ in bold letters. The sleeves of his long-sleeved T-shirt were rolled up a little past his elbows and Rick was drying his hands with a dish rag while his kind eyes stared into Negan's.

Rick looked cute. There was no other word for it. There was something about the smile on Rick's face and the way his tan skin stuck out against the light fabric of his shirt that was just wonderful.

“Well if it isn't Rick-fucking-Grimes.” Negan grinned, incapable of stopping himself from giving Rick one more glance over. “Entered the working class already?”

“I'm saving up for a car, mowing lawns didn't cut it anymore,” Rick answered with a cheerfulness Negan had lost a long time ago. He looked so content here, so at ease, that Negan had to wonder if he'd been working here for a while now. Surely if Negan had known then he would've found space in his tight budget to spend on lunches here anyway.

“You like it here then?” Negan inquired.

“It's okay. Little boring, but the customers are generally nice. I keep being asked if I can make a unicorn frappuccino.”

Rick did this adorable scrunchy thing with his nose that made Negan just want to lean over and kiss him. The bump on Rick's forehead hadn't entirely gone down just yet, but the bruising had gone from a violent red to a more blue-ish purple so that was at least some process in terms of healing. He didn't seem all that discomforted by it.

“Well then – considering I have a functioning dick in my pants, I think I'll just go for a cappucino. Those cupcakes any good?”

“The red velvet sell most,” Rick answered with a bemused look on his face which told Negan he was a little surprised at Negan's colorful use of words. Negan chose to ignore it – he was outside the confines of the school building, he could say whatever the fuck he wanted to.

“Two of those, then.”

“To go?”

“Nah, I'll be drowning in my own sweat if I head out right away.”

Rick nodded dutifully and Negan watched in amusement as Rick put on his work-face. Rick seemed to take himself very seriously when he carefully pulled out the two nicest red velvet cupcakes and put them on a little plate, and then he turned his back to Negan to make him his coffee. Negan felt the strong urge to pull on the ends of the bow tying the apron to Rick's lower back just to tease the teen but he kept his hands to himself, patiently settling for watching Rick's body move instead. He noticed Rick seemed a little tense around him and wondered if it was because Negan was his teacher and Rick felt pressured to get his coffee right, or if it was something else.

When Rick was done he set down Negan's coffee in front of him with a little pleased grin and Negan put down money on the counter. Negan bit back the sarcastic  _Good job Grimes, you managed to make a cup of coffee, this is gold fucking star material right there_ because for once, Negan didn't feel like being a dickhead. He might as well let the kid take pleasure out of his job because Rick would learn soon enough that he wouldn't get brownie points for having sparkly eyes and a toothpaste-commercial type of smile anyway.

Rick politely thanked Negan when Negan told him to keep the change, and Negan grabbed his shit and went to take a seat at one of the tables, the one nearest to the airconditioner. If Negan knew himself at all, and he liked to think that he did, he'd be  _forgetting_ his lunch way more often for the time to come. This kid had Negan wrapped around his little finger without even being aware of it.

Ripping a chunk of cupcake off and popping it into his mouth, Negan sighed and felt himself relax a little. This  _was_ some good shit. He had purposely picked a spot that had his back facing Rick (mostly because he knew he would be a fucking creep and stare at the kid) so he didn't feel particularly guilty about his bad manners when he all but shoved the rest of it into his mouth.

He did feel like a bit of an idiot when Rick slid into the chair across from him at the exact point when Negan's cheeks were so full Negan resembled a chipmunk.

“Hope you don't mind if I take my lunchbreak now, figured I should take advantage of how quiet it is,” Rick said, lips quirking up in a little smile that told Negan that he most likely looked like a complete ass. Negan said something along the lines of " _Gow rih uh-head"_ because he couldn't properly speak right now and wow, he  _definitely_ looked like a complete ass now. So much for being the hot teacher. If Negan had been any less of the man he was he would've felt embarrassed with the way Rick's eyes dragged over his face in clear amusement, and then rested on the logo on Negan's breast pocket. 

“You have a second job?” Rick questioned in genuine interest, eyebrows raising in surprise.

“Nun 'o your bizznizz, kid,” Negan replied around his mouthful of red velvet, though he did have the decency to cover his mouth with his hand since he didn't want to spray chewed up cupcake all over the table. It took him a few more seconds but when he had reasonably chewed up everything, he swallowed and ran his tongue over his teeth to make sure nothing got stuck between them before he asked, “What were you doing back there anyway? Could've robbed the damn place for all you know.”

“Sure as hell could've eaten everything in those few minutes,” Rick responded with a little grin, which made Negan chuckle. “I was organizing some boxes, since no one in their right mind wants hot coffee in this weather.”

“That awfully sounds like you're judging me, Rick,” Negan teased and Rick ducked his head though the smile didn't fade off his face. The water bottle Rick had brought over for himself was sweating, and a few drops of condensation rolled down the plastic surface, gathering at the bottom of it to leave a nasty circle on the wooden table. Rick seemed to catch onto it and he grabbed a napkin from the little chrome napkin dispenser at the center of their table to wipe at the bottle and then the table, placing his bottle on top of it once he deemed the table saved. The chocolate on Rick's muffin seemed to be in the process of becoming gooey too - the airconditioner had seen its best days too, or so it seemed.

"I wouldn't dare," Rick said more as an afterthought than a means to defend himself as he understood that Negan wasn't offended. Negan in fact did not mind being poked at occasionally at all - Negan loved playful banter even if no one was around to give him something as simple as that anymore.

Negan blew a little on his coffee and then he took a tentative sip, a bigger one soon after that when he learned his coffee wasn't scalding hot anymore. He had to give it to Rick - even if making coffee was no rocket science, the kid knew how to make a damn mean cup.

"Can I ask you something?" Rick tentatively asked. Negan raised an eyebrow in question and Rick continued, "well, I wanted to ask you this at school but I had detention and by the time it was over you were gone, so -"

"Just spit it out, Grimes."

Rick pulled a face and then he took a breath to recollect himself so he wouldn't start rambling again.

"It's just that what happened this week, I... Shane got punished worse than I did," Rick finally said with a worried little frown which Negan wanted to roll his eyes at.

"Sucks to be Shane," Negan dryly said, not making a point of hiding that he clearly did not give a shit, as he knew that Rick knew that by now. Rick shrugged. His eyes were on Negan's hand curled around the coffee cup just briefly, and then they were back on Negan's face. On his lips.

"It just don't seem fair – you know I started it, and he still got more detention than me. Why?"

Rick shoved a piece of muffin into his mouth and sucked the chocolate residue off his fingertips while he chewed. Negan couldn't help but glance down at the cut healing on Rick's lip, knowing it looked a lot better now that the swelling had gone down, but still thinking to himself that it looked quite sore without Negan's tongue to soothe over it.

"I think  _he_  started it when he stuck his tongue down your girl's throat.” The teen chewed probably longer than he should, just so he didn't instantly have to reply, so Negan added, "I'm not gonna encourage pussy ass behavior and punish you for giving him what he had coming for him. That's the kind of teaching that makes kids become spineless brownnosers when they grow up and we got more than enough of those here, don't you think? You shouldn't regret standing up for yourself, you can't always play by the rules if you want what's fair in life”.

Rick drank some more water to wash down his muffin, furrowing his brows in thought.

“I don't regret it. That's what bothers me. I should be regretting it right? I practically grew up with him for God's sake. But honestly, it just made me feel...”

Rick's little white teeth worried in his bottom lip again, effectively cutting himself off. Negan should probably say something nice now, comfort him. Instead he just leaned a little closer over the table and said a soft, “It made you feel  _real_ good, didn't it? Doing something bad like that, you liked it”.

Negan shouldn't be poking and prodding at something that should be left alone – something that should not be fed. Negan was certain that if he'd give Rick a little slap on the wrist, the proper  _well son, I cannot encourage such behavior and I think you should see the school counselor,_ Rick would go on his merry way and he'd go back to being the school's golden boy. But something in Negan thought that Rick wasn't as pure as he may seem to be and that there was more to him than the perfect person he tried so desperately to be.

"I bet you would do it again in a heartbeat," Negan decided when he knew Rick wasn't about to admit such a thing out loud even if the truth was so blatantly obvious.

"So what if I would?" Rick said almost defensively.

Negan threw his hands up in mock surrender.

"Hey - I'm not gonna judge you, kid. We all sometimes wanna do things we shouldn't do, it's human nature. Everybody's out there acting like the sun shines out of their assholes but when it comes down to it, we all fuck, eat, shit and sleep."

Rick was picking at the wrapper of his muffin and Negan cocked his head to the side as he studied Rick. Rick's cheeks were becoming a little flushed - couldn't possibly be because Negan had mentioned sex, since Rick had reached the age of knowing what it was for and quite possibly wanting it too (but Negan didn't want to think about that now because these pants were already clinging to him as they were). Negan was actually pretty sure that Rick had gotten his dick wet at least once before because any girl would be fucking  _stupid_ not to want Rick and Rick and Lori had always been touching each other when they'd still been together.

But the way Rick's blush was now steadily spreading down to the collar of his shirt had Negan wondering...

"Do you think of doing other _bad things_  with certain people, Rick?" Negan pressed. He was well aware that he was being as subtle as a fucking brick to the face at this point, that this was fucking inappropriate, but Rick didn't give him any warning signs.

Rick just parted his lips and  _sighed._ It was a strange sort of sigh, not one out of relief, not one out of frustration. Just one that said that Rick had forgotten for a few seconds how to breathe and it was in that exact moment, when Rick's gaze dropped down to Negan's mouth  _again,_ that Negan became acutely aware of the fact that Rick  _did_ want to do some bad things, and quite possibly with Negan.

Negan most fucking definitely hadn't been fantasizing that, then.

Rick quickly, too quickly, looked away while Negan practically grew giddy on the inside at this observation. Negan vaguely wondered what it would take for Rick to snap and be a fucking bad boy who kicked in teeth and did dirty fucking things under the bleachers with people he shouldn't be giving the time of day.

People like Negan.

"I sometimes do too, you know. It's completely natural," Negan then stated, because this was as explicit as he could allow himself to be, as truthful as he could get. He couldn't look Rick in the eye and tell him straight up that he wouldn't mind untying Rick's apron for him so he could slide his hand down Rick's pants and tear an orgasm from between his legs – because Negan wasn't  _stupid._

“But it's  _wrong,_ ” Rick said, voice nothing more than a murmur, as easy to brush aside just like the statement it carried. Always trying to be the good boy, make his daddy proud, do the right thing. What a fucking gem.

So, just because Negan wanted to mess with Rick's head a little more, Negan softly said, "It's not wrong if no one knows it even happened", and it had Rick's fingers twitching restlessly on the table as though the kid was on the edge of saying or doing something. Licking his lips, Negan leaned forward and was about to say something else when his eyes caught sight of the clock hanging over Rick's shoulder.

Negan had exactly three minutes to hurry his sorry ass back to work.

God fucking damn.

"Well then," Negan said jovially, fully enjoying how Rick seemed to be hanging onto every word he was saying, "I  _really_ should skedaddle. Got places to be, assholes to serve - you know the drill, don't you?"

Negan planted both his hands on the table top and pushed himself up, and Rick avoided meeting Negan's eyes as though he didn't want to be caught looking at Negan's body looming over his. Negan grabbed what was left of his cupcake and left his coffee for what it was while Rick's tongue was rubbing over the scab at the center of his bottom lip again, a white-knuckled grip on his bottle that didn't go unnoticed by Negan.

“See you on Monday, Rick,” Negan said before leaving, not waiting for Rick to reply at all.

* * *

With Lucille waiting for him with a show on Netflix downstairs that evening, Negan patted down his body with a towel as he emerged from the bathroom. A cold shower had washed away a day's worth of sweat and still hadn't been able to rinse his mind along with it – his cock was half-hard between his legs, a steady throbbing weight he was all too aware of.

He's been in a great mood ever since this afternoon. Couldn't help himself if he tried and it was because of the simple fact that Rick Grimes thought he was attractive and that was the best thing he's come to understand in a very long time.

Negan was still desired. He was still being  _seen,_ and by a smoking hot teen at that. There was nothing quite like having his ego stroked after such a long time of tucking his dick behind his balls and pretending he didn't have any needs at all.

Negan had to wonder to just what extent Rick had really looked at him – if he was as obsessed with Negan's eyes as Negan was with Rick's, if Rick was just as crazy about Negan's body the way Negan was about his. Had he touched himself to the thought of Negan and if so, what had he fantasized? Had he thought about Negan's body on top of his, a heavy weight between his hips, a solid pressure inside of him? Had he thought of sitting on his hands and knees and just allowing himself to be utterly  _used_ for another man's pleasure? Had he wrapped a hand around his cock or had he explored a little further, cramming as many fingers as he could inside of himself? The more Negan wondered about this, the more aroused he became. It was unbearable, not knowing what Rick tasted like on his tongue, felt like on his own body.

He strained his ears to listen for sounds of Lucille approaching their bedroom, but when he heard nothing he knew the coast was clear. Negan wasn't ashamed of his body but Lucille had been acting like Negan's dick had grown teeth the moment she found out he had cheated on her so he figured that her walking in on him stroking said dick would be a little, well, awkward. He dropped the towel and ran a hand over his flat belly, pursing his lips. Regardless of her being downstairs now he had to make it quick. She wouldn't stay away forever.

Negan dropped down onto the bed and took himself in hand, closing his eyes. He thought about Rick in his little uniform – and wasn't that another image for the spank bank. The thought of Rick wearing nothing but the apron made Negan snort, but then quickly the mental image of tugging on the little bow tying his apron together and watching it fall off followed and all of a sudden the image wasn't that funny anymore.

He brought a fist up to his mouth to stifle a moan and bucked a little more into his hand. God, he  _ached –_ felt like his skin was drawn too tight, like he was forced to live in a suit too small for him. Precum started leaking from the tip of Negan's cock because he always got so damn  _wet_ when he really got into it like this.

“ _Fuck,”_ he breathed as he dug his thumb into his slit. In his mind Rick was kissing his mouth open, his gangly legs wrapped around Negan's waist. Little bruises from bumping into desks and football training littered Rick's thighs the way they did whenever Negan saw him in his little track shorts on Mondays and while Negan in his mind ran his nails over Rick's supple skin just to leave his own marks, Negan squeezed himself tightly. His teeth bit into his knuckles, his other hand slick and tight on his cock the way he liked it to be.

The way he knew Rick would be for him too.

“ _Please_ ,” Rick would say, because he wouldn't be sure what he'd be asking for in the first place. And Negan would grin for him – would lean a little more into Rick's body. In his little fantasy he had Rick right on the counter next to the cash register, Rick's uniform strewn across the floor and Negan's pants lowered just enough to expose his cock.

“ _What do you want?”_ Negan would tease. Of course he would. It was only in his nature after all.

“ _Fuck me.”_

“Fuck.  _Fuck_ ,” Negan groaned into the empty bedroom, feeling his orgasm build and just mindlessly mumbling to himself now, “I'd fuck you so fucking good too – make you fucking _scream_ for me. Pretty little thing like you deserves to get railed properly, won't be able to do a damn thing without feeling me in you -”

It was the thought of Rick's head falling back, his lips parted in a dumb  _O_ as Negan would push into him that had Negan tipping over the edge. He bit into his knuckles hard enough for it to fucking  _hurt_ while scalding ropes of hot cum shot over his fingers, onto his stomach. His hips were mindlessly thrusting up chasing after something that wasn't there in the first place and for a good few seconds Negan actually thought he'd gone blind.

“Negan? Are you okay?” Lucille hollered from the bottom of the stairs and Negan had to laugh because he felt like a teen getting caught masturbating by their mom all over again.

“Peachy!” He yelled back. Lucille's footsteps retreated from the bottom of the stairs again and Negan stared at the cum on his hand, watching it dribble down his tan fingers with his heart racing in his chest.

Jesus Christ, that was good.

* * *

Sunday came and Negan packed a lunch purposefully. The day passed at a reasonable pace – between 2:00 and 4:00 time seemed to take its sweet, well,  _time,_ but after 4:00 somehow things seemed to move along a lot faster. Negan drove past the coffee shop once he was done and grinned a little to himself when he just caught Rick turning a corner on his bicycle. He had half the mind to play the  _accidental encounter_ card again but he figured it wouldn't seem genuine if it happened two days in a row, so he refrained and drove to his own house instead where the strong, pleasant smell of vanilla-scented candles welcomed Negan home as soon as he opened the front door. He was dead on his feet when he kicked off his shoes and he briefly observed the laundry piling up on the steps of their staircase before entering their living room.

“Honey, I'm home!” he singsonged. Lucille wasn't on her usual spot on the couch but she had picked up the mess in their living room today so he figured that the amount of sleep she had gotten these last nights had done her some good in terms of energy.

Popping open the buttons of his shirt, he started trudging up the stairs and walked to their bedroom, pausing when he caught Lucille staring into her own mirror reflection with determination, fumbling with a red scarf she was attempting to wear around her head. All of her hair was tucked away underneath the soft-looking fabric.

“Hey beautiful,” he softly said from his position in the doorway because he didn't want to startle her. Her hands froze by the sides of her head.

“Hey handsome,” she then replied when she caught his eyes in the mirror reflection, her lips quirking up even if she looked like she got caught with her hand down the cookie jar. She almost shyly smoothed a particular fold and Negan's mouth quirked up in a smile. No matter how her body was fighting her, Lucille would always be a prideful thing. She was used to being the most beautiful woman in town and would try to hold on to that as long as possible.

“Looks good on you,” Negan decided. He shrugged off his uniform shirt and walked up to her to wrap his arms around her. “I like it.”

“I'm still trying to figure it out,” Lucille replied as her small hands came to rest on Negan's bare biceps. They looked at their joined reflection in the body length mirror – neither quite used to the sight of the frail woman staring back them both.

“How was work?” she asked. Negan noticed she had bothered to paint her nails today and shrugged. It seemed that they were both having a good day today.

“That old lady I mentioned yesterday came back again.”

“What for?”

“She said she lost her wallet but I saw her put it back in her purse yesterday. When I decided to humor her and help looking for the piece of crap she complimented me on the size of my trunk and proceeded to ask me if I knew how to handle my gear stick. I think I found my long lost grandmother.”

The snort of laughter coming from Lucille was unexpected but not unwelcome even if it stunned Negan into silence for a good few seconds. It's been forever since they had really laughed about anything together and as her body shook in his arms, Negan couldn't keep from chuckling too.

“I'm sorry honey,” she said when she caught herself, wiping the mirth from her eyes.

“Nah, I get it, my suffering is your pleasure,” Negan said with a little grin, “You wanna grab something to eat?”

“I think I can eat, yeah,” she replied.

There was still mischief glimmering in her eyes and Negan liked it there. He pressed a kiss against her temple and then let her go so they could go downstairs. As they walked down the stairs, her shadow only a thin line behind his, Negan realized that whatever this thing was that he felt for Rick, he had never felt it for her. He was certain it was love that he felt for her without a doubt, but it didn't feel half as intense. Just seeing Rick ride a damn bike had been enough for him to get through the day. What could you possibly call that? Obsession, a crush, plain desire? Negan didn't have a fucking clue but whatever it was, it made him feel damn good.

And although Negan and Lucille were good now too, it hadn't always been like this. After that one fight and the diagnosis that had followed Negan had been distant to Lucille for a good while, leaving the house more than he should have, and staying away for too long. Of course it had been cowardly but Negan had been too angry with the sudden shit storm he found himself in and too overwhelmed to properly function. Was half of it his fault? You bet your sweet ass it was. One moment she'd been yelling at him that she wanted a divorce, the next she was waking up in a hospital room, being told she had leukemia. Both their lives had changed all in just a few days. Lucille had been, besides Negan's father, someone he'd never thought he'd have to lose. He'd taken her goodness for granted and he'd always expected her to be there and forgive him for everything. The thought of her leaving him through both a potential divorce and  _death_ had been too much for Negan to properly handle.

At one point he'd picked himself together. Lucille had given him the cold shoulder whenever he had tried to talk to her but that had only been fair. He'd tried to take her out for dinner every week, and at the beginning they continued to act like nothing had happened. There would always be a strange tension in the air and although the subject of a divorce was dropped entirely they hadn't spoken much to each other at all unless necessary. She had made no efforts to leave him, and so Negan had taken that as a good sign.

He clearly remembered the last time he'd tried to put his hands on her. It had been forever since they had last kissed, Lucille had quit her job that particular day and had been more quiet than what had been normal those days. They'd been in bed and she'd been wearing a thin nightgown. Negan had slid his hands under the lace trim and he had barely grazed his fingers over the front of her panties when she had said a bitter, _“_ _did you slip your hands under Sherry's dress like that, too?”._

It had hurt him. Lucille had never been a vicious person and to hear something so hateful come from her lips had struck Negan harder than any slap to the face could have. Negan wasn't quite sure  _why_ that had hurt him, because she was entirely justified in feeling like that, but it still got to him. At the time he'd gotten his second job just so she could quit hers and focus more on getting better, back when they still had hope in their hearts that such thing was possible, and whereas he had been absent during those first few weeks he had started to make double the effort to be there for her and make himself available whenever she was in need. With how she hadn't openly told him to grab his shit and  _leave_ for a second time Negan had hoped that things could be somewhat normal again but apparently the rage and betrayal still simmered low and deep inside of her little frail body.

After she said that and Negan was too baffled to say anything in response for a few good seconds, he had grabbed his pillow and had started sleeping on the couch. He still was there for her whenever he could but with her cancer gradually getting worse and Lucille's expectations on recovery getting lower and lower, Lucille just grew tired of the anger that had festered inside of her much too long. Eventually she started talking to him again when she was ready for it. He comforted her when she needed it. She let him sleep in their bed again and he was allowed to hold her again once it finally dawned in on her that he really wasn't going anywhere.

Even though Lucille's trust in Negan had once more grown Negan had made no attempts to have sex with her again and she never asked for it either. He didn't think Lucille was up for it physically anyway, to be honest – maybe things would have been different if a marital crisis had been all Lucille had to battle. The only good thing out of all of this was that their friendship and love had grown stronger than ever, and whereas Negan no longer necessarily felt any real desire to touch her anymore (maybe he had seen too much suffering in her body, maybe it was the simple fact of knowing she wouldn't want him to anyway), he still cared. It had been a gradual process but Negan knew that he wasn't in love with Lucille anymore even if he loved her with all his heart. His heart simply didn't seem to know how to love and treat anything good in this world no matter how hard it tried.

And he knew that he didn't have to stay faithful, because up until Sherry Lucille never had really  _known_  that Negan had regularly cheated on her anyway. Negan knew how to keep something on the down low just fine. But... Somehow when confronted with death, with all of the stress coursing through his body, picking up random girls at bars had seemed so insignificant that he hadn't bothered anymore. It just didn't seem worth the effort anymore. Promising Lucille that he wouldn't cheat on her again had only seemed like the most logical thing to do.

The only one he's really looked at  _like that_ had been Rick. Call him a fucking pedophile, fuck if Negan should care because he  _knew_ that he never would have laid a damn finger on someone too young to consent to anything, but he'd always thought Rick was an inherently pretty child. It was plain to see. But he had never truly started fantasizing about Rick until Rick had been about 16 years old and had grown a tan and more muscled thighs over summer break. Ever since that Negan's been a goner for the kid and no one else had crossed his mind. Not like that. Not even Lucille.

When they entered the kitchen Negan pulled out a chair for Lucille to sit in and decided on frying some eggs and making some toast. He didn't particularly feel like cooking anyway. He cracked a few eggs after the butter started sizzling in the pan and he turned around when Lucille shot into a coughing fit.

“Hey – hey, are you okay there?” he had to ask, putting a hand on her back.

“I'm – I'm good,” Lucille said between coughs and wheezes, sounding anything but.

 _It's just a fucking cough,_ Negan told himself. She's had worse for sure, but it still made him a little uncomfortable. He grabbed her a glass of lemonade and she thanked him for it. Now that he came to think of it, her nose had been a little runny when he got home too. Who the hell got a cold when it was this hot outside?

“I'll run to the store after dinner, get some cough syrup in you,” Negan decided. She opened her mouth insist she was fine but one look from him had her settling back into her seat with a sigh.

The truth was that in the beginning of Negan's relationship with Lucille, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her like that either. Her lips, her hair, her long legs – everything about her had driven him crazy the same way that Rick drove him crazy nowadays. Negan  _knew_ the difference between attraction and a crush and he'd be lying to himself if he didn't admit to himself that he cared about the kid on top of everything else that he felt for him. The difference between what he had felt for Lucille in the start and what he felt for Rick right now lied in the simple fact that Lucille had made things bearable for Negan. He'd been going through a shitty time in his life when he had met her, just like he was going through a shitty time now, but she had made things seem lighter, more okay.

Rick, he just made Negan forget altogether. Forget that he was supposed to be acting more appropriately around the kid, forget that he had a sick wife waiting for him at home. Rick made Negan forget that he ever went through anything bad in the first place. Things just felt effortless and normal with Rick, like it's always been meant to be like that.

Negan wasn't sure what that could mean. He liked to think that being with Lucille really had taught him how to love properly.

But he'd be a damn liar if he were to say that Rick was just another pretty face to him.

 


End file.
